A Pilgrimage to Beaumont Hamel; One Man's Trip to his History.

This piece was published in the newspaper last week. This however is the unedited version. I thought I would share it here now in honour of Remembrance Day.

Journey to Remembrance; A Pilgrimage to Beaumont-Hamel.

On his drive through
the countryside toward Beaumont-Hamel it rained. But by the time Tony Roberts arrived the sun
was shining and illuminated the green knolls and brightened the entire
field. He had no idea what to expect but
immediately recognized the monument that is like the one in Bowring Park and he
called home to his parents and sisters in Joe Batt’s Arm. It was an emotional call for all parties
particularly since his family wasn’t aware that he was going there. He
spent hours and hours there, by himself, sitting back, watching the rabbits on
the field. There was no noise. It was
quiet. It was peaceful.

And he took pictures.
In one of them the crimson path weaves serpentine-like through the green banks.
They give the illusion that they are streams of blood. Perhaps it’s a trick of light in the
photograph or perhaps it’s by design that the walkways through the trenches on
the field at Beaumont Hamel appear as veins traversing what is known to
Newfoundlanders as a place of the most horrific violence.

Mr. Roberts is fully
aware that there on July 1, 1916 the newly formed Newfoundland regiment was
all but completely annihilated in their bloodiest engagement of the first World
War. These young men were ordered to go
only to be picked off like wooden ducks in a carnival game. After a mere thirty minutes it was all over
and on that fateful day the blood in those trenches was owing to no optical
illusion.

It changed the course
of history for the entire island, driving it further into poverty at the loss
of so many breadwinners. Gone were
fishermen, teachers, lawyers, businessmen from every community around the
coast. Gone was a generation and all
their heirs. Gone were the future
leaders of the country and this one single event, half an hour long, led to a
different Newfoundland and it exacerbated the existing conditions of economic
decline that already plagued the small island nation.

Tony Roberts sat
alone for many hours at Beaumont Hamel contemplating just those sorts of
thoughts. Born at Change Islands, raised
in Joe Batt’s Arm and now living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he made the
pilgrimage to the place that had determined that yes, unlike so many others, he, his siblings, and his father would exist after
all.

He had been to Europe
previously with others in his family but for some reason they had never gone to
the place that had so impacted them before even his father was born. Fred Roberts, his grandfather, had fought at
Beaumont Hamel and survived. He watched his comrade Fred Waterman shot in the
back and another Change Islander lose his life.
The impact of that event trickled down through the entire family and all
were always acutely aware that World War One played a large part in their lives
through the generations.

“I went to all the
concentration camps in Germany before but it’s only this year that it really
became apparent to me that I have to go there,” says Mr. Roberts of the
Canadian Historic Site in France.

Between work
engagements—Mr. Roberts is head of Sales and Marketing of the medical Division
of Toshiba Canada-- he drove from Holland to Paris with the intention of doing
just that. His first visit was to Flanders and the museum there. The museum had displays from countries all
over the world and he spent two hours there first.

“They had rebuilt the
tower which was destroyed,” he says. He viewed
some of the grave sites in the area also.

But it was
Beaumont-Hamel that was his real goal so he drove towards the site and arrived
just an hour before the office closed.
After touring the museum he walked outside to the meadow where nearly a
century prior his grandfather fought his final battle of the war.

“The surprising thing for me, as I started to
enter Beaumont Hamel was why the heck were they fighting out in the
country. It’s not near anything. If there isn’t anything there now, what was
there then.” He says of his first impression of the historical site.

“It did not seem to
be a typical place like a city to fight a battle,” he adds.

According to
historical records the Advance at Beaumont Hamel was the beginning of the
Battle of the Somme. The point to the
advance was to move forward and take the Valley of the Somme and move the
German Western Front back as part of the ultimate goal to defeat them. Like a foot ball game takes yards and moves
towards the opposing end of the field, so the armies were battling for
territory.

The first wave of
soldiers over the parapet were taken down by German gunfire before they got
over the top. Many of these men fell
back into the trenches injured, dying or dead to such a degree that the
Newfoundlanders that went after them had to go across the field because the
trenches were blocked by the casualties. This added 250 additional feet of
unprotected area through which they had to advance before even arriving at the area between the
German and Allied front that was known as No Man’s Land.

It was there that Mr.
Robert’s grandfather, Private Fred Roberts, was felled by artillery fire.

The story that ninety
year old Dan Roberts tells of his father’s experience is gruesome. It is relayed by his daughter Carolyn Freake,
older sister to Tony who knew the grandfather who had passed away before her
younger brother was born.

“My grandfather
didn't fall in the trenches, he was shot when they were ordered up to advance
toward the German line. He was shot and
lay on the ground called no man's land for three days, being passed over for
dead. On the third day he woke from
being unconscious and saw two Red Cross men standing nearby. He called out to them. They went over to him and they told him they
left him because they thought he was dead.
They picked him up to bring him back to the trenches when the Germans
opened fire again, He told the men to
drop him and run to save their own lives. They told the sergeant when they
arrived at the trenches that they had left a wounded man outside. He himself (the Seargeant) ran out ,picked
him and brought him back to the trenches.
(In the original battle) When they were advancing toward the Germans he
saw his friend Fred Waterman fall......”

And as the younger Mr.
Roberts sat there on that monument, looking out of the fields for several hours
he couldn’t help but contemplated how things could have been different.

If the bullets had
been just a few inches in another direction—Fred Roberts lost his left arm in
the battle perhaps because of his forging into the hail of bullets “with their
arms above their helmets as though going into a winter blizzard instead of a
storm of German bullets and grenades” as it’s described by eyewitnesses from
that time in historical writings —or if those Red Cross men or that anonymous
Seargant hadn’t saved him, he would surely, like most of the other men,
perished on that field.

His grandfather’s name would have been listed
on the wall of the dead or missing and the bench where he sat would be empty
because he would not have even been born.
If Fred Roberts had not survived, there would not have been a love story
between him and the new Change Islands post mistress, Caroline Sceviour of
Exploits a few short years later nor the children Ruth, Suzanne, Elizabeth and
the father of Tony Roberts, Dan, would have been born.

“It was not just
those men lost. It was all of their
descendents.” He says.

It was this thought
that filled his mind, the idea of all of the potential that was wiped out due to
what he refers to as “some foolish war.”

And as he sat there
his thoughts were “Gee Whiz, what would I do if I was on that field for three
days. The longer I sat there What would I do, what was going through my
Grandfather’s mind as he lay on this field?
I think the biggest thing for me was what a blessing it is that I’m
here. How many people? When I look at the walls of people that died,
how many descendents are not here today because of that war.”

“It’s all a fine
thread, we’re all here by a fine thread,” he muses and his visit to
Newfoundland Memorial Park such a prominent place in the province’s history
made that sentiment very personal and real.

Private Frederick George
Roberts, was much more than #440 a war veteran and survivor of Beaumont Hamel. Granddaughter Carolyn remembers her
grandfather well and to her he was simply Bappy.

“When I look at the
photos of myself and Bappy I think how well he managed without his left arm and
it amazes me. He used to put me in a blanket and pull me up and down the stairs
all over the house. He took me on the
harbour when he used to skate, and he would pull me on my sleigh, We still have his skates, I remember going to church with him, ,eating
at the table and kneeling down to say Grace.”

They all lived on
Change Islands still then and she has memories of his kindness to the children
of the town.

“He would fill his
pockets with candy from the shop and we would walk up to the school hand in
hand and when the kids came out we would throw them in on the playground. Would
laugh so hard watching them all running to get what they could. He was so kind
to everyone”

After strolling
through the gravesites, the monument, the fields, and experiencing the emotions
of being on that ground where a nation was altered forever by the loss of so
many of their future businessmen and politicians and teachers and fishermen Mr.
Roberts feels compelled to learn more about the events and particularly his
grandfather.

The grandfather he
never knew survived something most he shared that experience with—The Advance
of Beaumont-Hamel-- did not. And this
year on November 11 the remembering will be more poignant, the poppy have more
meaning, the gratitude for all that was sacrificed carry more weight.

This profoundly
moving experience is a pilgrimage more should make. It is something that should be impressed upon
generation after generation to make them understand all that was lost and all
that was gained when young Newfoundlanders go to war, then and now.

We need to make a
connection to the humanity of those men who lived and died a century ago, to
understand how very real that battle they fought was, how, as Mr. Roberts said,
war is indeed quite “foolish” though there is no doubt that the first world war
was for the greater benefit, to defend the freedom we enjoy today in our
country. We need to do these things and
we also need to attend the memorial services and share the history with our children so they can pass it
along to theirs.